When we started building Enji, we weren’t dreaming about boardrooms, billion-dollar valuations, or becoming “the next big tech company.” We just kept seeing the same frustrating problem over and over again: Small business owners wasting time, money, and sanity trying to "do marketing" without a clear plan or the right tools.

At the time, our founder (Tayler) was a small business marketing consultant working one-on-one with clients. Every time she sat down with a small business owner, she couldn’t shake the thought: “There has to be a better way.”

Because she saw it all firsthand:

Small businesses struggling to even start marketing.

Inconsistent efforts that led to feast-or-famine results.

The insane cost of trying to get the right help.

And tools built for massive brands—not for the scrappy, kitchen-table entrepreneurs out here making magic happen.

One thing Tayler knew for sure? She wasn’t about to slap together another marketing course and call it a day. (Hard pass.)

Small business owners deserved better.

They deserved simple tools.

They deserved real strategy.

They deserved marketing solutions made for them—not adapted from corporate playbooks.

What came next has been a wild ride: a crash course in tech, startups, growing pains, late nights, learning curves, and more than a few “what the heck are we doing?!” moments (we’re still learning every day, by the way.)

But now, two years in—with hundreds of small businesses using Enji—we’ve picked up some lessons that are too good not to share.

So in honor of our second birthday, here are 7 things we’ve learned while building a tech company from the ground up. 

1. No One Knows You Exist

Here’s a reality check we learned early—and it’s true whether you’re launching a tech company or starting any kind of small business: building a great product and putting up a website isn’t enough. You can’t just “build it and they will come.” When you launch, literally no one knows you exist. Not yet, anyway.

That means getting the word out has to be your top priority. You can’t sit back and hope people magically stumble across your genius. You’ve got to be loud, proud, and a little scrappy—basically brute-force your way into the market if you have to.

When we started Enji, we knew this from the jump. That’s why we leaned hard into public relations right away—pitching ourselves, telling our story, and showing up way before we even felt “ready.” It wasn’t always perfect, but it made a huge difference in getting people to pay attention.

Bottom line? If you want people to find you—you’ve got to make it impossible for them to miss you.

2. It Costs Money to Market Your Business

Of course, we already knew this, but it still surprised us a little just how much time and money it would cost to get people excited about (and subscribing to) Enji.

Whether you’re running a small business or you’re targeting small businesses, hitting the right pricing is crucial. Our software is only $29 because we know what it’s like trying to market your business on a tight budget. 

And while we love being accessible, because our pricing is so low, that means our cost to acquire customers (or customer acquisition cost (CAC)), has to be as low as possible as well. 

At first, our CAC was higher than we wanted, and that’s normal when you’re just starting out. So, we shifted our focus to customer lifetime value (LTV)—how much a customer spends with you over time. Because even if CAC is low, it doesn’t help if people don’t stick around. Focusing on LTV helped us find the right customers, not just the cheapest way to get them.

3. Retention is About More Than Taking Good Care of Your Customers

We all know how important retention is—if you’re only focused on getting new customers, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table with the customers you already have. But for a lot of businesses, customer retention is about creating a good experience. After all, once they like you, they’ll keep buying from you. But it’s not that straightforward when you’re building a tech company. 

First, everyone’s brains work differently, so it can be hard to please everyone—especially when it comes to prioritizing new features or updating the user experience. 

With a tech platform like ours, it’s also important for us to grow with our users and the changing demands of marketing small businesses, not just stay stagnant. They’re using Enji to grow their businesses, so that means we need to evolve with them in order to retain them long-term. And sometimes what our customers want is different than what we want…so, yeah…super straightforward space to make big business decisions in 😅

4. Churn Hardens You

Churn is just another part of the game when you’re building a tech company, but it feels brutal. When you finally get people to hear about your brand and use your product, but they decide they don’t want it, it’s a gut punch. 

This is where we’ve felt most of the emotions and the pressure of building a tech company. It sounds terrible, but to deal with it, we’ve learned to turn off those emotions, stay objective, and try not to take it personally. 

Yes, it’s as hard as it sounds.

But the truth is that even people who love your product can churn, and it’s often for reasons you can’t control. Even people who are your friends will churn, and all of that comes with so much emotion. With that said, it is the reality of growing a business. In order to grow, we’ve learned to compartmentalize the personal and emotional feelings from the business side of things. 

Ultimately, churn is just another metric to keep an eye on and continue working to lessen—through our product, our marketing, and the people we serve. 

5. Your Customers WILL Tell You How to Make Your Business Better If You Listen

When you’re building a company, you start with a vision. For us, we had a strong one from day one—especially since our founder, Tayler, had lived it firsthand: growing her own businesses, helping other small business owners, and seeing exactly where traditional marketing tools fell short.

But here’s what we learned fast: your vision doesn’t exist in a vacuum. As you grow, it has to intertwine with your users’ needs and experiences. And if you’re paying attention, trust us—your customers will absolutely tell you how to make your sh*t better. You just have to be willing to listen.

That said, you can’t let yourself pivot every time someone asks for something new, either. Otherwise, you’ll spend all your time zig-zagging—and never really moving forward. One of the biggest lessons we’ve had to master (and keep mastering) is finding the balance between staying true to our vision and evolving Enji based on what small business owners actually need.

If you want to get an idea of just how much Enji has grown over the last year, head to this post to see Enji’s latest new features! 

6. Building in Public is Rewarding

This one’s a little personal—but it's a big part of who we are. At Enji, we’re committed to building in public. That means you’ll see Tayler (our founder) front and center, sharing the real behind-the-scenes of growing a tech company—not just the highlight reel.

Because let’s be real: it’s way too easy to think of a tech company as a bunch of robots or faceless names (especially when you’ve ever dealt with those lovely customer service emails 🙃). We want to be the opposite of that.

Sharing the highs and the lows, being honest about what’s working (and what’s not), and letting you into the process makes everything so much more rewarding. Plus, it keeps us grounded in what matters most: building the kind of tools small business owners actually need—and showing up like the real people we are, busting our asses to make it happen.

7. Your Inner Circle is More Valuable Than You Even Think

Building your own company, especially a tech company, legitimately feels like one of the hardest things to do. It’s hard to find other people who understand the day-to-day and what it’s like in general. 

Finding an inner circle of other founders and business owners is so important for our mental health. With an inner circle, it’s where we can vent, get advice, and just hear that we’re not alone. 

Most days are an absolute roller coaster—it might start with a sh*tty email, then you have some wins (yay!), then you realize you forgot to do something, you start looking into different things, and the day goes by in a blur. 

While part of the fun is that every day is unique, it’s so helpful to have those people in your corner who can relate to it as well. 

We Wouldn’t Trade It For Anything Else

Starting any business is full of risk—there’s no way around it. And sure, building a tech company definitely comes with its unique challenges (including the amount of money it takes to get a startup off the ground). It’s hard work, but there’s ultimately no place we’d rather be. 

How cool is it to build something that was initially just a thought, and now people use it and love it every day? That feeling can’t be beat!

At Enji, we’re committed to continuing to build for small business owners, and we’re excited for more of the lessons we’ll learn along the way! Make sure to follow us over on Instagram for more behind-the-scenes! And thank you for cheering us on!